Class in zinemaking... for $570!? (Only $420 for non-credit)

Maybe you heard my jaw dropping all the way from Philly this morning as I browsed the latest Philadelphia City Paper and saw an arts listing titled "The Zine". The University of the Arts here in town is doing a summer course in zinemaking... and charging $570 for it!

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The class itself sounds interesting as far as these things go and if I went to that school and needed the credits I might say "What the Hell?" and take it. But zines just aren't complicated enough to warrant a $570 class. If I wanted to teach someone about zines I'd just hand 'em a stack of them and tell them to go wild.

i think the class seems kind of cool...kind of ludicrous, price-wise, but like sarah said, if i needed some credits for something, maybe i'd enroll. i'd love to see a workshop at a zine fair that encourages critical comprehension skills & collaborative editing or whatever...but it's not really the kind of thing you can teach in two hours.

that said, the execution of the class is probably very disappointing compared to my daydreams. but it's an interesting idea. if we're going to be supportive of every other academic institution in the world starting a zine archive, we can hardly get all outraged when schools introduce zines to their currciulums & class rosters. although i definitely admit it's a little weird.

This might be worth it if you go in to the class with an idea of what you want your zine to be already and make 2,000 copies on their dime! Otherwise, I think actual life experience teaches a lot more when it comes to zines.

Yep, I saw a flyer for this posted in a lunch spot in center city over the weekend.

The instructor is Gregory Pizzoli, an MFA candidate in book arts. He has to teach a class of some sort in order to get his MFA, and I can't blame him at all for wanting to teach a zine class. As for the price -- can't blame him for that either since UArts is setting, charging, and collecting admission. It's a nice gesture for the course to be open to the public but unfortunately (or fortunately?), most interested non-undergrads or non-students would never have that kind of disposable.

So, despite my inclination to get up in arms about it, what it really amounts to is University of the Arts is offering a summer course for undergrads on zine-making. Hm. Neat. That happens all over the place. The thing about this one that makes us all cringe a bit -- even if we admit to being slightly interested -- is that non-UArts zinesters are seeing an actual tuition cost attached to the sort of thing that we're much more used to seeing as a haphazard (and very free) zine workshop. I mean, we've all lead one of those at one point or another, right? At least this will naturally encourage a slightly more serious approach to creating zines and self-publishing.

That said, Alex is right that there are about a billion things about being creative that just can't be taught. But that doesn't mean providing tools and means and encouragement and guidance to those who have a proclivity toward expressing themselves is wasteful.